Share the Book Love:

The Story...

"A Fish Out of Water"

An above sea hunt for the pleasure and song of human women turns disastrous when Ariel, 77th daughter of the Mer Queen, shares rising tides—powerful passion—with the forbidden Erica. Court rivals quickly report her transgression and Ariel finds herself an example of what happens to those who defy the Queen.

Stripped of her voice and placed under a powerful curse, Ariel makes her way above water to Erica’s side. Erica, who is now dying for want of the one thing they can never share again.

A Fish Out of Water turns an old-fashioned fairy tale into an erotic modern lesbian romance exploring boundaries of love and trust, atonement and pleasure.

The Lesbian Review says, “I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t put it down. It even haunted my dreams and I woke in the middle of the night to just keep reading it. I think Kallmaker put her own kind of spell on me.”

Excerpt from Chapter 11

“Are you hungry?”

Erica’s question brought Ariel back from her intense study of Erica’s home. The driveway ended at a very large house. All the windows were dark except one. A single, wan light burned over the wide double doors.

When Ariel didn’t answer, Erica looked over her shoulder. For a moment Ariel could only think of that night, and Erica’s face framed by the collar of her white tuxedo. The rose had been there, she knew it had been. The light flashed on the white at Erica’s temples and the silver of her eyes. What did it matter, Ariel thought. Erica was infected and dying, and now she was as well.

“You haven’t said a word.” Erica studied her in the light over the entry. “You said plenty that night.”

Ariel nodded. She remembered everything they had sung between them.

“Can you talk?”

Without thinking, Ariel truthfully nodded yes.

“You can, but you won’t?”

Ariel realized then that lying would have been easier. There was so much she wanted to tell Erica, so much truth, it just hadn’t occurred to her she might need to be ready to lie. It was too late to change her story, so she simply nodded.

Erica’s eyes flared with sudden anger. Her nostrils flared slightly while her lip flared with contempt. “So you’re somebody else’s toy now, is that it? Then why are you here?”

Ariel shook her head, trying to say with her eyes that she wasn’t playing a game. Perhaps doubt showed in her eyes, because she abruptly remembered the way Laveena had made her feel, like a puppet to be enjoyed.

Erica turned away, and her question did not seem directed at Ariel. “Why do I want you?”

The sound of the door swinging open echoed through the seemingly empty house. The foyer was barren of furniture, and the walls devoid of everything except the outlines of paintings no longer there. From somewhere in the dark came the solitary drip of water.

Ariel felt washed over with the memory of the grotto. If she stepped over this threshold it would be another prison, one her body would not let her leave no matter how the ground shook.

Erica turned to look at her and their silver gazes locked.

Was it pity that she felt? Or was she as weak as the queen had said, unable to resist? Weak for staying, or weak for going? Was she really thinking that she was here for Erica’s sake? She should be honest with herself. Nothing she had done had ever been for Erica’s sake.